Thursday, April 1, 2010

Burr and Repeal

It's safe to say that Richard Burr's backing down on full repeal of the health care bill is not going to play well with the Republican base in North Carolina.

Our polling since the bill passed has found that almost 90% of voters who were opposed to it now want to see it repealed. Given that 84% of North Carolina Republicans said they were opposed to the bill on our last poll, it's a safe bet that at least 75% of them support repeal.

None of the guys running against Burr have had a real strong angle for taking votes from him, but he's given them some room now to 'out conservative' him (which he said in February was impossible) by being unambiguously supportive of full repeal. They still aren't likely to get much traction without some serious money behind that message, but given the broad interest in this issue on the right perhaps one of them could use this to good effect for fundraising. Receiving anything less than 75% of the primary vote would raise some serious doubts about the enthusiasm of the Republican base for Burr.